AMSA Price Increase: Industry Feedback

STEEL INDUSTRY
AMSA: YET ANOTHER PRICE INCREASE
FEEDBACK ON THE LATEST NEWSLETTER

Dear Industry Employer

Following the newsletter that we circulated last week (if you have not yet read the newsletter, please click here), we received the following feedback:

• They are killing us slowly.
• Prices of metal is killing us going to force us to close down business. We can’t keep up with the increases!!!!!!
• An absolute disgrace!!!
• This could put the smaller companies out of business and lead to job losses. Very sad … something must be done now.
• Do they realise that these ridiculous prices cannot always be forwarded on to our customers and tenders alike and us as companies cannot absorb these type of costs. They are also saying that the price will go up again in January 2017. Do these people actually want us to keep our doors open and create jobs?
• Definitely scrap the 10% import duty! Protectionism is not the solution for South Africa. We have to compete by being productive and efficient and stamping out all forms of cronyism and corruption.
• Another nail in the coffin of local manufacturers. We compete directly with Chinese imports for our sales of … and other products; we need steel at the same price as the Chinese manufacturers to be competitive. This increase puts us dangerously on the edge … and product dies and jobs disappear. Like all of us, Mittal must modernise and invest to be competitive, if we drove 80 year old cars and used 80 year old machines nothing would work in SA, why support an 80 year old steel mill?
• Why was no one in the media, moaning when the steel price plunged and steel stockists wrote off MANY millions of Rand.
• And just guess who owns it??????

And then there is this feedback:

• AMSA sell quality steel. The Chinese should never ever be given any business what so ever. AMSA employ many people whom I happen to be friends with.

• Gerhard Papenfus close the steel industry and then see what steel prices in South Africa will be. Even more if you think steel will be imported and the rest of the industry will survive, then redo your qualifications [sic]. The final products will be imported. So bye bye to 500k jobs in South Africa. You are extremely shortsighted.

In order to enable NEASA to take a stand on behalf of all the downstream steel industry employers, we continuously require your valuable input. Therefore, please add your views to what has already been said. To do that, just click here.

Kind Regards